Here's a true Kuba axe

[Freddy]

On ebay, I often see African weapons presented as 'Kuba' by their sellers. It looks like most people (sellers) don't know any other tribes. I know that the Kuba tribe had a large array of weapons, mostly swords and knives. But not all that comes from Africa is Kuba.

Anyway...so I thought : let me show them a true Kuba axe.

I got this one some time ago. The handle is made of some kind of hardwood. There's some decoration on the head of the shaft. What I particularly like is the twisted 'tang' of the axe blade.
Dimensions :
total length : 37 cm
length of axe blade : 16 cm
width of shaft head : 7,5 cm









The last picture shows a detail of the head of the axe shaft near the twisted tang. As you can see on the picture, there's a small amount of damage to the wood.
At first, I thought that it was just a piece of wood which broke off the piece. The Dutch friend who found this axe pointed out to me that, after examining the piece, it looked more like someone had taken some chips from the wood. One can clearly see that a knife was used.

I know this is done on certain African statues. The small pieces of wood which are taken from the statue or fetish are used in amulets or as a means of giving power to other objects.
But this is the first time I have encountered this on a weapon.

Does anyone else have some info ?

[Flavio]

Hello Freddy, nice and very rare axe! Congrats and thank you to show it to us!